CBRE Global Investors completes EUR3.2bn worth of deals in 2013

CBRE Global Investors transacted deals worth a total of EUR3.2bn last year as it positioned it client’s portfolios for investing in to new opportunities in 2014.

The company sold off close to EUR2bn and acquired EUR1.2bn of property as it wound down or repositioned certain funds across Europe and raised new capital for funds and from new separate account clients for deployment this year.

The fund manager has increased its transaction target for 2014 to EUR6bn as it believes that 2014 will provide a broad range of acquisition and sale opportunities European-wide as the region’s economies recover.

Will Rowson, chief investment officer EMEA, CBRE Global Investors, says: “2013 was the year to clearly position our portfolios in a timely fashion as the European-wide recovery begins to gather momentum.

“We made a number of tactical disposals, mainly in core Western European markets, which have sold well with market liquidity at strong levels. Structurally, we, along with others in the industry, are seeing the end of the first generation of non-listed property funds. As a business, this means we were more focused on disposals as a natural part of this liquidation process.

“Our disposals programme is about selling liquid, non-strategic assets in line with investors’ requirements whilst making more core plus and value add investments in markets where we perceive mispricing.

“We aim to double the level of our transactions in 2014 following a successful year of capital raising and the recent hiring of Alain de la Belliere as head of transactions in France completes our team of key market facing professionals. We have capital to deploy and we will be a more active player in the market this year, sourcing investments that meet our wide range of stock selection criteria and investor requirements.”